Human cerebral organoids in mice

[Gulo Blue]

1st, cerebral organoids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_organoid

You take embryonic pluripotent stem cells, and direct them to become brain cells. In some cases, structures form that appear similar to structures in human brains. (Like 1 structure in an organoid, not several. The organoids are far, far smaller and simpler than human brains, but they are composed of diiferent types of nerve cells.)

Here is one:

I'm a bit shocked just learning that much. Here's part 2:

https://www.statnews.com/2018/04/16/human-brain-organoid-mice-neurons/

Scientists have implanted 200 of these things in mice, removing a small part of the mouse brain, and dropping these in organoids in. 80% survived, developing a network of blood vessels and maturing as you would expect them to in normal situation. They've been grown to 233 days (seven and a half months.) The organoids remained small relative to the size on the mouse brains.

The implanted organoids were also sending axons ? the biological wires that carry brain signals from one neuron to another ? into both sides of the mouse brain, not only the side with the window, and forming such strong synapses with mouse neurons that the neural activity of the two species was synchronized.
?When neurons fire together, that means they are connected and [engage in] cross-talk,? said Salk?s Abed Mansour, the paper?s lead author, forming ?neuronal networks.?

The mice were given a type of memory test and the mice with human organoids performed a little better on day 1, but they also did worse on days 2 and 3.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Shorter version: scientists grew human brain matter inside mouse brains just to see if it would survive and develop and felt the need to also do behavioral testing to see if the mice were smarter.

 

[Michchamp]

um... neat?

or maybe twisted?

 

[Gulo Blue]

um... neat?

or maybe twisted?

Twisted was my reaction. The idea that they felt they had a need to check and see if these mice were smarter than average mice suggests that they don't know what lines they are crossing.

 

[Michchamp]

Twisted was my reaction. The idea that they felt they had a need to check and see if these mice were smarter than average mice suggests that they don't know what lines they are crossing.

Yeah. I don't know if there's more to their research, but it kinda sounds like they did this just because they can.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Yeah. I don't know if there's more to their research, but it kinda sounds like they did this just because they can.

There's value to the research. You could use these mini brain like things to study disease and potential treatments. There might even be transplant applications.